In Philippines: IFAD, Government and partners review on-going projects and prepare future loans and grants programs

For the past 7 years the IFAD country team in Philippines conducts annual Country Program Reviews named ACPOR. These meetings bring together loans and grants and help to synergise the various initiatives and strengthen their impact. Quaterly meetings are then monitoring the progress of the action plan.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development-Philippines (IFAD-PH) is currently conducting its 7th Annual Country Programme Review (ACPoR) hosted by the Integrated Natural Resources and Environmental Management Project (INREMP) at Bohol Plaza Resort, Tagbilaran City, Bohol, Philippines. The activity involves six (6) grant, three (3) loan andtwo (2) upcoming Projects/Programmes (Converge and Fishcoral) in the Philippines. The session will last from 20 to 23 January 2015 with the theme “Leveraging and Scaling Up for Strategic Rural Transformation.”

The activity aims to report on the achievement of the Philippines Country Programme in 2014 and the result of the 2014 Philippines-Country Strategic Operations Programme (PH-COSOP) review, and the performance of both loan and grant projects in the country; assess how the Country Programme grant and loan Projects have contributed to the achievement of the strategic objectives of the PH-COSOP and to the sectoral outcomes of the Philippines Development Plan (PDP); identify the distinct/comparative advantage of the IFAD Country Programme and Project for leveraging and for scaling up; identify the challenges, gaps and practical solutions in implementing the Country programme activities and projects of both ongoing and upcoming projects; and, prepare an action plan both for country programme and projects for implementation in 2015.

In his remarks, Mr. Benoit Thierry, the new Country Programme Manager of the Philippines, congratulated teams for their dynamism and challenged the various programmes and projects to go beyond their borders in contributing to IFAD’s mandate of supporting government policies for poverty alleviation, and revive the active yet decreasing Philippines portfolio. Impact on poverty which remain an issue in rural areas of the country and focus on smallholders will remain the key drivers of IFAD country program.

The first day highlighted the comparative advantages of IFAD which the projects and programmes appreciated. Among which were IFAD’s flexibility in terms of programing, co-financing with other financing institution, strong knowledge management and knowledge sharing, indulgence in providing capacity building and technical backstopping, and its multi-dimensional partnerships.

Likewise, Mr. Thierry further emphasized the need for clear achievable objectives for 2015 and stressed that IFAD is very interested on how the projects made an impact to the rural families and contribute to the PH-COSOP. On top of the two (2) new projects, already designed and to be negotiated before end march for IFAD approval, a new project and a new cosop will be conceptualised and designed end 2015.